Weather.com processes a ton of individualized data, and is the fourth most used mobile app in the US.
So in terms of real time processing of localized data, they’ve been getting it right for a long time.
Earlier this year IBM announced they were putting $3 billion into developing a new IOT division, Watson IOT. They bought several small companies with various individual patented technologies. And they opened a strategic partnership with weather.com to investigate data delivery.
Apparently they liked what they saw, because they have now bought the company. It’s not about the weather site for them, it’s about the systems for delivering localized information very quickly with very high-volume traffic.
They are not buying the television channel, instead that channel will license the data back from the IBM unit. They are buying weather underground as part of the deal.
Really interesting, and a typical IBM move. They look at the bones of an operation. The structural foundation. And they’re always interested in something that would work if the whole world signed on.
Once they explain it, it makes perfect sense that weather.com would fit an IOT design. But it’s not the way most companies think about it. 